"Yes and no," he answered meditatively. "It is a very wonderful place, and I might grow to be fond of it in time. But it seemed to be so terribly lonely, and then one's vision seemed so cramped. One could only look down lines of streets--you are shut in by houses everywhere. The sun rose behind houses, set behind houses. You wanted to see the distant spaces, to look across miles of country, to catch glimpses of the far-off hills, but the houses shut out everything. Oh, it is a lonely place!" "And yet it is crowded with people?" "And that adds to the feeling of loneliness," he replied. "You are jostled and bumped on every side, and you know nobody. Not a face in all the thousands you recognise." "I should like to see it all some day." "Some day you shall," he said. "If ever I grow rich enough you shall have a month there. But let us not talk of London just now. Has anything happened since I went away?" "Nothing at all, Ralph." "And has nobody been to see you?" "Nobody except Mary Telfer. She has come in most days, and always like a ray of sunshine." "She is a very cheerful little body," Ralph said, and then began to attack his supper. A few minutes later he looked up and said-- "Did you ever hear the old saying, Ruth, that one has to go from home to hear news?" "Why, of course," she said, with a laugh. "Who hasn't?" "I had rather a remarkable illustration of the old saw this morning." "Indeed?" "I had to go to London to learn that Hillside Farm is for sale." "For sale, Ralph?" "So Sir John Liskeard told me. I warrant that nobody in St. Goram knows." "Are you very sorry?" she questioned. "Not a bit. The squire squeezed his tenants for all they were worth, and now the money-lenders are squeezing him. It's only poetic justice, after all." "Yet surely he is to be pitied?" "Well, yes. Every man is to be pitied who fools away his money on the Turf and on other questionable pursuits, and yet when the pinch comes you cannot help saying it serves him right." "But nobody suffers alone, Ralph." "I know that," he answered, the colour mounting suddenly to his cheeks. "But as far as his son Geoffrey is concerned, it may do him good not to have unlimited cash." "I was not thinking of Geoffrey. I was thinking of Miss Dorothy." "It may do her good also," he said, a little savagely. "Women are none the worse for knowing the value of a sovereign." For several minutes there was silence; then Ruth said, without raising her eyes-- "I wish we were rich, Ralph." "For why?" he questioned with a smile, half guessing what was in her mind. "We would buy Hillside Farm." "You would like to go back there again to live?" "Shouldn't I just! Oh, Ralph, it would be like heaven!" "I'm not so sure that I should like to go back," he said, after a long pause. "No?" she questioned. "Don't you think the pain would outweigh the pleasure?"